Writers in the Storm

Writers In The Storm welcomes back Kara Lennox, a.k.a. Karen Leabo for the final installment of her plot-fixing series. Kara is an award-winning, bestselling author of more than sixty novels of romance and romantic suspense for Harlequin and Random House. AND she’s a 2012 DOUBLE RITA Finalist! In case you missed any of the first lessons, you'll find links below.

by Kara Lennox

Plot Problem #14:  Weak black moment

There must be a point in your book when all seems lost.

The hero is about to fail in his quest; the heroine is about to be thrown off a building; the villain has gotten hold of the secret weapon. Your hero and heroine are breaking up and there appears to be no way to work out their differences.

Go back to Lesson 5 and review Plot Problem #7, Stakes are too low.

By now, hopefully you've raised the stakes in your story. The black moment is the time to play that up. You have to keep asking yourself, per Donald Maass, "How can I make this worse? What is the worst that can possibly happen?"

Don't hold back. Your black moment isn't black enough until the reader, and possibly even you as the writer, can't see a way out. In some cases, your hero might actually fail in his/her quest. That's okay, so long as he/she ends up gaining something even better in the end.

The black moment is when your characters must make that ultimate sacrifice.

Throughout the book they've been growing and learning; now, when nothing is working, their only choices is to somehow apply the lessons they've learned to get out of the fix they're in.

Maybe they put together the final clue of the mystery and figure out where the kidnapped child is hidden. Maybe the heroine realizes the only way she can be with her vampire hero is to become a vampire. Maybe the heroine learns that she had the tools she needed to vanquish the villain all along.

Escaping from the black moment might require all of your skills as a writer and a good bit of brainstorming. Sometimes, once you know how you want the characters to escape, you'll have to go back and plant the tools, or the knowledge, or the clue that is needed.

One thing you do NOT want is some heretofore never mentioned element to swoop in and save the day. No angels suddenly appearing out of nowhere to vanquish a demon; no rich uncle suddenly dying and leaving the heroine enough money to save her failing company; no suddenly remembering a secret password.

Also, no sudden changes of heart. I have read many books where the hero is a complete jerk throughout the whole story, until the very end when he suddenly turns all mushy and says something like, "Didn't you know all along that I loved you?" This might have flown in years past, but not today.

Likewise, this is also not the time to reveal that the "other woman" is actually the hero's sister. (And if you read the lesson about conflict, you already know that a simple misunderstanding can't be the conflict for an entire book.)

If you're struggling for a black moment, look at your characters for a clue.

Ask yourself what is the one thing your heroine would never, ever do? If the heroine is a daddy's girl, she loves her father and trusts him and would never, ever betray him, the black moment might involve her discovering he is a criminal. And her ultimate sacrifice is that she has to turn him in, possibly to save the hero from being convicted of the crime. Now that's a black moment.

Plot Problem #15:  The Ending Does Not Satisfy

A strong ending is crucial to a successful plot.

I'm sure you've heard it said, a great beginning sells your book; a great ending sells your next book.

You want your reader to sigh with satisfaction as they close your book or turn the last page of your manuscript. If your characters have overcome impossible odds, chances are your reader will feel satisfied.

In a romance novel, this means the hero and heroine get their happily-ever-after. Although they don't have to commit to marriage, they do have to commit. The reader has to believe that these two are going to spend the rest of their lives together.

This means you must have solved the conflict. No fair just having them agree that they love each other, so they'll figure it out later. They have to have it figured out by the end of the book. (This applies to a standard romance. If you're writing a series a la Stephanie Plum, or the J.D. Robb “Death” books, there may still be larger issues to settle, but the hero and heroine are at least in a truce where they can be happy for a while).

If the book is a romantic suspense or fantasy or mystery or romantic-fill-in-the-blank, this means you'll have other conflicts to resolve. The villain must be vanquished, the child rescued, the demons sent back to hell, the magical potion recovered, etc. etc.

The rule of thumb for this is, resolve those OTHER conflicts first, then resolve the romance. That way, the moment your hero and heroine have committed to each other, your story is done.

If your book is primarily another genre, with a romantic subplot, you'll probably want to resolve the romance first, then the other conflicts. Whatever the central conflict is, that is the one you resolve last.

Sometimes, because we love our story people, we have a tendency to linger too long.

Sometimes it's hard to know exactly how much to dwell on happy-happy. I have often been guilty of ending too abruptly. I once had an editor who felt so uneasy about the terrible conflicts these two people had overcome, that she wanted to be reassured that they really had solved their problems and she requested an epilogue set in the future (complete with babies, of course).

The story will feel "finished" to the reader if you somehow restate the theme.

If you are in the hero or heroine's head, you can have her state it outright. This is what she learned, and this is how she is going to live her life from now on. Or, you can be more subtle. Conventional wisdom says show don't tell, so if you can devise a scene that shows how the characters have changed, that's even better.

You do, however, want that last line to be memorable. You want a picture to linger in the reader's mind.

In my book Reluctant Partners, the hero and heroine were in dispute over the ownership of a fishing charter boat. The first scene involved the heroine kicking the hero off her boat. At the end of the book, they've had the sign over the dock repainted to list both of their names, side by side, as co-captains.

A nice technique to bring a book full circle is to use bookend scenes.

Think about the movie BACK TO THE FUTURE. The first scene with Marty's family shows how completely dysfunctional all of them are. Dad is a wimp, Mom is a lush, brother works at McDonald's, sister is a loser. The last scene, Dad is a successful author, Mom is slender and athletic and happy, brother is an executive, sis is popular with lots of boyfriends. (My take on the theme of this movie, BTW, is "One single act of heroism can change you, your future, and the future of everyone around you.") If you can do this with your book, chances are you've nailed the concept of theme.

Homework: How will you end your book?

• What kind of visual can you give the reader, a symbol of the new reality that has been forged by your characters' hard work, sacrifice, and everything they have learned?
• What do you want lingering in your reader's mind?
• Can you do bookend scenes?

(Hint: Sometimes thinking about this might suggest a new opening scene for your book that you never considered. Be open to this! It might be really, really good.)

* * *

So now we have come to the end of this series.

I'm always happy to try to answer any questions, even ones that don't directly apply to plotting. I hope you've enjoyed the whole Plot Fixer series, and I wish happy sales to all of you. And me, too!

Need to read  a missed lesson?

• Lesson 1: Your Premise Isn't Compelling
• Lesson 2: How to Fix a Weak Opening
• Lesson 3: A Lack of Goals
• Lesson 4: Is Your Conflict Strong Enough?
• Lesson 5: Raise the Stakes
• Lesson 6: Your Plot Moves Too Slowly
• Lesson 7:  How to Pick Up the Pace in Your Story
• Lesson 8: Is Your Plot Too Predictable?
• Lesson 9: Plots That Rely on Coincidence and Contrivance
• Lesson 10: A Loss of Focus

Do you have questions about plotting based on these two lessons? What about from other lessons in the series? We've got Kara, so let's keep her busy in the comments! :-)

About Kara

Kara Lennox, author of Project Justice series for Harlequin SuperRomance has six titles now available in e-book or print! Her novel, Sweet Romance Hard to Resist now available from Harlequin Heartwarming. One-Night Alibi is coming in July 2013. She also writes as Karen Leabo. Her latest title is Millicent's Medicine Man, Loveswept Classic Romance.

You can find Kara at:

Her blog: http://karalennox.com
Her  Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/kara.lennox

by Susan Squires

As I was preparing a workshop for the California Dreamin' Conference, I began to think about the concept of making one element of your work, whether scene, sentence or character, do double duty. I've decided that this concept may be one of the "secrets of the writing universe."

First I'll show you five ways that Double Duty can be introduced into your books. You can probably think of others. Then we'll talk about the effects that it can have on your finished product.

1. The simplest form of double-duty is probably the kind you use for attributions of dialogue.

Instead of saying, "he said," or "she expostulated" after a line of dialogue, you leave off the attribution and start a new sentence that implies who is speaking, such as:

"'I can't believe you said that.' Her voice broke and she turned away."

If this is a scene between a man and a woman, we know the woman was the one who spoke, even though we are not technically given an attribution but an action description. Of course you all do this already. It's great for varying the sentence patterns in your dialogue scenes.

What it does: Great for pacing. Speeds up your book and makes it a page-turner.

2. That pair of sentences I just made up does double duty in another way. The description of the action tells the character's emotion as well as describes the action, as well as tells you who was speaking. Without it, the character could be only angry rather than also deeply hurt.

What it does: Shorthand description--great for pacing. Also deepens the reader's perception of the character.

3. Scenes can do double duty as well. As a matter of fact, they nearly always should.

Examples are: introducing the villain and showing the protagonist's internal dilemma in the same scene. Or, an action scene that advances the plot, and shows the heroine that she has to take responsibility for her mistakes. You get the idea.

What it does: Keeps the book from dragging. Excellent for tight middles. (And who doesn't want one of those?)

4. One of the skills that make an actor great is being able to show more than one emotion at once.

To take a recent example, Daniel Day Lewis as Lincoln had a great scene with Sally Field who played his wife. He showed clearly that he was exasperated with her for not getting over their son's death, that he loved her anyway, and that he was guilty over his role in their son's death and his ability to push it to the side to focus on the national interest. Wow. Oscar time.

Your characters need to have more than one emotion simultaneously too. You can do that in description of their complicated feelings. Or you can do that by showing what they feel while they are talking, which can be very different than what they're saying. This doesn't mean you need to show every emotion in great detail. Just hint that two things are going on at once. Readers love to be "in the know."

What it does: Deepens the character and makes them more engaging. Involves the reader, because they "figure out" what's really going on.

5.  Characters can be made to serve two purposes.

Some books need lots of characters, like family sagas, or sweeping historical fiction. That's their nature. But if you have two characters in your book that serve similar purposes, the book is often improved by combining them.

Donald Maas takes it one step further in his advice in Writing the Breakout Novel. He thinks you can combine characters who have very different purposes into one character. I did that on two occasions, and it works.

Try asking yourself whether characters can be combined. Can the mentor role also be the betrayer? Can the hero be the one that precipitates the twist instead of the best friend's mother? You see what I mean.

What it does: Makes characters more complex and thus engaging to the reader. Speeds up the book because you don't have to introduce and pay attention to another secondary character.

So, you probably sense a theme here. Making various elements in your book do double duty speeds up your book and creates a page-turner, which is just what we all want as authors. It makes your characters deeper and more compelling, and it engages your reader in figuring out what's really going on--a deeply satisfying experience.

In short, it is a key to making your book thrill agents, editors, and readers. That definitely qualifies it as a "secret of the universe" for me.

Do you use double-duty writing? Which of the five above is your favorite? Do you have questions for Susan? What else do you think makes for a faster read?

About Susan:

Susan Squires is New York Times bestselling author known for breaking the rules of romance writing. She has won multiple contests for published novels and reviewer’s choice awards. Publisher’s Weekly named Body Electric one of the most influential mass market books of 2003 and One with the Shadows, the fifth in her vampire Companion Series, a Best book of 2007.

Susan's latest book, a novella called Your Magic Touch (part of the Children of Merlin series), released last month. All of her books are available at Amazon and other booksellers.

Susan has a Masters in English literature from UCLA and once toiled as an executive for a Fortune 500 company. Now she lives at the beach in Southern California with her husband, Harry, a writer of supernatural thrillers, and three very active Belgian Sheepdogs, who like to help by putting their chins on the keyboarddddddddddddddddd.

Here's Shannon Donnelly with 12 tips to help you gather "just enough" details for your story!

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There's a dilemma that faces every writer of fiction—when is enough enough? When do you need more details to help the reader “see” the scene? And when do the details become distracting devils?

The answer seems obvious: When setting interferes with the story—with pace or plot—it must be cut back.

But that's too easy an out. Cut back on the details, and what's left often edges too far into being a costume drama for any historical fiction.

Even stories set in modern times, like the Urban Fantasies I write—Burn Baby Burn and Riding in on a Burning Tire—need some level of research (hey, all that mythology has to be grounded).

A mixture of textures from physical environment is key to evoke the illusion of reality. A writer evokes memory through the identifiable details; specific smells, sights, sounds, textures, tastes involve a reader's imagination.

Contemporary fiction can rely on some shorthand of shared memory. With historical fiction, however, common memory cannot be assumed. Few of us have the experience of riding in a carriage.

Is this an important detail in the historical fiction? It might be. The handling of a whip, the flick of the wrist that produces a snap, the means to recapture the thong back in the hand with a smooth gesture that does not produce an inadvertent jab on the reins, could reveal much about the person.

The devil's not only in the details, it’s also the characterization.

So how do you do you get great research for your story and get the book done at the same time?

1 – Start with general research and move to specific.

General research is where you look for a grounding. Specific research is where there is one specific question to fact check. This comes up in EVERY book I've done. For example, in Riding in on a Burning Tire, part of the story centers on an ancient book. Now I could have just made something up, but I wanted resonance—so I actually used books HP Lovecraft made up (there’s no one better for spooky esoteric).

2 – Don't let the research overwhelm the story.

Think of research like a spice. The right amounts add zest and a complex note. In an early draft of Border Bride I’d turned the story into a travel guide. The research had to be trimmed back since the facts were not the star.

3 – If you're writing fiction, make things up.

Fiction is the art of telling plausible lies. Read Nora Robert's Born in Fire and you will believe she took up glass-blowing—no, she invented that story, but she did so with plausible fiction.

4 – Confirm your sources.

Just because one historian says one thing, doesn't make this true. Make sure at least two different sources say the same thing, three is better. And make sure your sources do not reference each other—that's how historical lies are born.

5 – Look for fresh angles on old stories.

David Howarth discovered that no one had ever bothered to write about the Spanish Armada using the Spanish archives. His book, The Voyage of the Armada: The Spanish Story, became a best seller by documenting the monumental Spanish mismanagement (the fleet was doomed before it set sail, with rotten provisions since the fleet was so large by the time the last ship was provisioned, the first had all its supplies spoilt).

6 – Build your own library.

I'm the person who has not just a library card, but also supports my library with fines. I will check out a book, and keep it until the book I'm writing is done. Used books are also your friends—and there's nothing as handy as being able to go and look this stuff up without leaving your house (or needing the Internet).

7 – Email or speak to experts.

Look into local history groups. Visit museums. Don't be shy about writing, emailing or making a phone call—experts love to talk about their work. Be polite and always thank someone for their time.

8 – Do your own research.

If you want your story to be fresh that means you need to dig up the right details. There's a wonderful scene in Laura Kinsale's Flowers from the Storm that has the hero making chocolate—the details shine with accuracy and give an insight as well into to the character. That's what the right details can do—they'll make your characters and their world come alive.

9 – Use local libraries, including college and university libraries.

You can usually get a card by either taking a class, or sometimes universities offer cards to local residents. Libraries love to be used since it helps them get funding and reference librarians can be more than helpful with how to access their collection.

10 – Browse the Net.

I don't use the Internet to fact check—not unless I can verify the information from at least three credible sources. However, Wikipedia is awesome as a starting place, particularly when a citation is well documented and referenced. Try typing in random URLs (but make sure you have a good virus scanner), or use quote marks in your search phrase to look for only that information. When you find a great site, bookmark it, and look for links out.

11 – Stimulate your writing by allowing yourself a few minutes of research.

Only do this when you're stuck. For example, I needed another "shopping in London" scene in A Dangerous Compromise. A few minutes of browsing through my books and I found the SoHo Bazaar, so I was able to write that scene because I had the setting in mind.

12 – Start writing before you've done all the research.

You will never know enough. And if you know too much, you can swamp the reader. It's sometimes better to go in and do the research as you need it.

The last thing I can add is to enjoy your research (but not too much). It's a treasure hunt. But it's also a means to an end.

About Shannon

Shannon Donnelly’s writing has won numerous awards, including a RITA nomination for Best Regency, the Grand Prize in the "Minute Maid Sensational Romance Writer" contest, judged by Nora Roberts, RWA's Golden Heart, and others.

Her writing has repeatedly earned 4½ Star Top Pick reviews from Romantic Times magazine, as well as praise from Booklist and other reviewers, who note: "simply superb"..."wonderfully uplifting"....and "beautifully written."

Her newest book, Riding in on a Burning Tire, the second book in the Mackenzie Solomon, Demon/Warders Urban Fantasy series is just out from Cool Gus Publishing. And her next Regency romance, The Cardros Ruby, is due out in May 2013.